Almost twenty years ago, on a random afternoon, I got a call from my best friend's father. I can't remember what he said, but I knew what it meant. Jack was dead.
Not expected-if-tragic following a long illness. Not in something as immediately visceral and utterly prosaic as a car crash. He drowned.
I loved him. As a young twenty-something, I'd been in love with him for almost a decade. A hopeless gay boy yearning for his straight best friend as they play video games and have sleepovers and spend every day together.
And he drowned. Almost twenty years ago. Every now and then this song comes through my rotation; if I don't skip it, I'm bawling. I didn't skip it tonight.
I am still in love with him. With his ghost.
"And the bitter pill I swallow / Is the silence that I keep / It poisons me, I can't swim free / The river is too deep"
I'm crying tonight because of this song.
Almost twenty years ago, on a random afternoon, I got a call from my best friend's father. I can't remember what he said, but I knew what it meant. Jack was dead.
Not expected-if-tragic following a long illness. Not in something as immediately visceral and utterly prosaic as a car crash. He drowned.
I loved him. As a young twenty-something, I'd been in love with him for almost a decade. A hopeless gay boy yearning for his straight best friend as they play video games and have sleepovers and spend every day together.
And he drowned. Almost twenty years ago. Every now and then this song comes through my rotation; if I don't skip it, I'm bawling. I didn't skip it tonight.
I am still in love with him. With his ghost.
"And the bitter pill I swallow / Is the silence that I keep / It poisons me, I can't swim free / The river is too deep"